A French novel - Renaudot Prize 2009, Frédéric Beigbeder

"This is the story of a 1970s Emma Bovary, who, during her divorce, replicated the previous generation's silence about the woes of the two wars. It's the story of a man who became a pleasure-seeker to get revenge for being left, of a father cynical because his heart was broken. It's the story of an older brother who did everything not to be like his parents, and a younger brother who did everything not to be like his older brother. It's the story of a melancholic boy because he grew up in a suicidal country, raised by parents depressed by the failure of their marriage. It's the story of a country that managed to lose two wars while making people believe it had won them, and then to lose its colonial empire while pretending it didn't change its importance. It's the story of a new humanity, or how monarchist Catholics became globalized capitalists. Such is the life I have lived: a French novel." F.B.